Thomas Friedman: Chris Christie story ‘really sick’

Columnist Thomas Friedman called messages from a friend of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie mocking the children of Christie’s political opponent “sick,” comparing the situation to civil war in the Middle East.

The New York Times columnist was responding to text messages revealed Wednesday between a Christie ally and former Port Authority official David Wildstein and an unknown person about September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, in which the unidentified person said they felt bad for school buses stuck in traffic and Wildstein replied they were the children of Barbara Buono voters, Christie’s former gubernatorial opponent.

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“When I read that quote, Joe, about ‘who cares about those kids, they voted for the other guy.’ The first thing that came to my mind was that’s exactly how Sunnis would talk about Shiites or Shiites would talk about Sunnis in Baghdad or Beirut,” Friedman told host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.

Friedman drew a comparison to conditions that plunged Lebanon into civil war, saying the messages are “sick.”

“The Lebanese civil war started in 1975 when a school bus got shot up,” Friedman said. “And I think that’s a sign of how — sometimes you need to read a quote like that to realize how far we’ve descended, how deep the polarization has become. These aren’t fellow citizens, these aren’t fellow New Jerseyans: They are the enemy. That’s really sick.”

Christie has been accused by the mayor of a New Jersey town near the bridge of ordering the lane closures as political retribution for not supporting Christie in his reelection campaign.

Christie has denied any involvement in the closures, and Wednesday issued a statement that he had never before seen the exchanges that were made public.